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The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center
David Chipperfield Architects’ new 8,000 m2 Anchorage Museum Expansion will open to the public on 30 May 2009. The organisation of the new building is based on five linear volumes of varying length and height arranged along the western face of the existing building. This arrangement forms a new facade and entrance facing downtown Anchorage. The new building offers windows through which the activity of the museum is observed. The visitor, from within, is re-oriented to the city context and its extraordinary natural setting beyond. The glass facade of the new four-storey building is fritted with a striped mirror pattern, providing views out of and into the museum and refl ecting the sky and surrounding mountainous environment. The interior design concept exposes the concrete structure as part of the character of the internal spaces. Walls are constructed between columns to establish a series of rooms within the new building. The main public spaces – the entrance lobby, circulation atrium, cafe, and exhibition spaces – use different colours and materials to give each its own identity. Windows have been positioned in all non-exhibition spaces and some exhibition spaces.
The Anchorage Museum Expansion will also house the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, exhibiting 600 Alaska Native ethnographic artefacts from the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian. The new Common created in front of the museum will provide a new public space for downtown
Anchorage.
David Chipperfield Architects: Franz Borho, Pedro Castelo, Martin Ebert, Isabelle Heide,
Victoria Jessen-Pike, Melissa Johnston, Christian Junge, Peter Kleine, Mattias Kunz, Marina
Mitchell-Heggs, Andrew Philips, Billy Prendergast, Julian Sattler, Dominik Schwarzer, Rene
Wolter
Architect of Record:
Kumin Associates Incorporated: Chip Banister, Daphne Brown, Mike Griffith, Marina Komkov,
Jon Kumin, Dana Nunn, Erica White, Ross Timm, Petra Wilm
Associate Structural Engineer:
Magnusson Klemencic Associates: Greg Briggs, Jay Taylor
Structural Engineer of Record:
BBFM Engineers Incorporated: Anne Anderson, Dennis Berry, Colin Maynard, Samantha Spindler
Services Engineer
Affiliated Engineers NW Incorporated: Dean Eriksen, Geoffrey McMahon / RSA Engineering
Incorporated: David Oliver, Warren Williams, Channing Lillo, Mack Bergstedt
Quantity Surveyor
Davis Langdon: Martin Gordon, Jenny Young
Façade Consultant
W.J.Higgins and Associates Incorporated: Wes Higgins, Michael Cleere, John Griesmer
Lighting Consultant
George Sexton Associates: Joe Geitner, Brian McIntyre, George Sexton
Exhibition Designer
Ralph Appelbaum Associates: Ralph Appelbaum, Anne Bernard, Miranda Smith, Tim Ventimiglia, Jennifer Whitburn
Landscape Architect
Charles Anderson Landscape Architects: Charles Anderson, Michelle Arab, Karen Janosky
Associate Landscape Architect:
Earthscape: Elise Huggins
General Contractor
Alcan General Incorporated: Terry Fike, Steve Jelinek
Client Advisor
RISE Alaska: Sarah Barton, Don Simmons / PACE: Larry Mathis
